Bengaluru, June 4 -- In early 2023, Baibhav Mishra started attending Cult.fit's group fitness classes at a centre in Bandra, Mumbai. It quickly became part of his routine, until one morning when he and a few others showed up at 6am, only to be halted in their tracks by a security guard. The gym had shut down.

"No email, no app notification, nothing," Mishra recalled. "I had paid Rs.20,000 upfront for an annual plan for me and my partner." He says Cult.fit was unresponsive when he sought help and that pushed him to air his frustration on microblogging platform X.

Determined to squeeze out some value for his money, Mishra shifted to Cult.fit's Juhu centre, a few kilometers away. Six months later, that one shut too. The next option? Lokhan...